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Food Forest Help Needed

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Rob From Sydney:
Thank you! I've sure got a lot of stuff to digest! Here are my key takeaways so far:
1: Spacing only applies to large, permanent, overstory trees. Short understorey trees can just be stuffed in.
2: Overplant. Some trees will thrive, some will die, and some will be in the middle. You can always move trees and spacing only becomes problematic after 5-10 years.
3: Plant temporary trees to give plants shade as they grow. And you can always move them later on, just don't let them take over where they are.
4: "I spaced mostly 10-15 feet". Judging from just that nothing is too strict.

Now for some futher questions:
Make sure that you have paths/rows so you can move wheelbarrows and the like. I just saw the edulis design food forest, and there were lots of paths and the whole forest was very open to the sun. I have always imagined walking through a food forest like a rain forest; trees overhead as you walk through. I guess I need to rethink that, but how open should a food forest be? How big should the gaps be between overstory trees like Sapotes, Avos, Mangoes, etc, to let light into the understorey?

Different fruit trees come in different shapes, and that is important...
How should I fit in trees all the odd trees, like permanent bananas that form large clusters, or the dense annonas that grow kind of like spheres, the slow growing lychees/longans (that grow tall but seem to like the shade, if I'm right), and the garcinias and papayas that grow thin but tall?

Thanks for all the help so far, I can't wait for more answers!  :)

Finca La Isla:
At my place what we call a food forest is really a mixed orchard mostly. There are only a few species that are really happy as understory trees. In my case that starts with cacao and salak. I think that many garcinia are shade tolerant. If the large trees were planted at 30 meter spacing then I think it would be easier.
In my experience acerola needs full sun. It will grow fine with partial shade but produces way better in lots of sun.
Peter

K-Rimes:

--- Quote ---How big should the gaps be between overstory trees like Sapotes, Avos, Mangoes, etc, to let light into the understorey?
--- End quote ---

How big is your planting area? It will determine how big your spacing should be. A good guy to ask this question to is Skhan on the forum, who had a really packed in smaller yard, and had removed many trees over the years to dial it in.

In my case, I maybe had .25 of an acre DENSELY planted, and I really regretted how haphazardly I put stuff in the ground. I didn't even think about it. I just put in the ground. At first I had things mostly in a row, but then I had more plants than space and started to stuff them in. It became a real problem, even with 6' spacing for understory plants, which I also agree with Peter aren't really a thing, it was an issue.

Re: understory, I have my big sabara in dappled shade from sunrise till about 11am then it gets direct sun till about 2pm. This was enough for it to fruit and grow well, but I don't think it would produce at all if it were in dappled shade all day, so if you were thinking to plant all around the bottom of what will turn into large trees, you'll probably have a good few years of production til they get fully shaded then not as much.

RS:

--- Quote from: Rob From Sydney on January 18, 2025, 05:31:32 AM ---Make sure that you have paths/rows so you can move wheelbarrows and the like. I just saw the edulis design food forest, and there were lots of paths and the whole forest was very open to the sun. I have always imagined walking through a food forest like a rain forest; trees overhead as you walk through. I guess I need to rethink that, but how open should a food forest be?

--- End quote ---

Yeah it looks open to the sun because the overstory trees (mango, avocado, etc) haven't grown in yet, which can take 10+ years. I'd guess the spacing is about 15'-20' for those larger trees, but if you won't be pruning you may want more like 20-25'+ spacing.

Paths/rows are great for sun/airflow/maintenance access. In humid areas, airflow is really important to prevent mold/disease. Plus it's really difficult to wade through a sea of vegetation when trying to pick fruit.

I've also heard garcinias, starfruit, some annonas, black sapote and silas wood sapodilla can handle some shade. Bananas and papayas can go anywhere until the overstory grows out, but bananas like moisture and papayas don't like much moisture in my experience.

A general rule of thumb is to place taller trees to the north (or south down under) to limit shading and maximize available sunlight, but this is more critical for smaller sites with less space. And of course don't forget to plant pollinators and nitrogen fixers.

Galatians522:
I think part of it depends on how long you want to grow them before you begin pruning. When Central Florida was entirely a farm community and land was cheap because they hadn't invented air conditioning, lychee and citrus were planted 40' x 40'. Given time, the trees would fill that entire space (particularly lychee). They would also grow about that tall and the tops of the trees would consequently be almost impossible to harvest.

After the 1980s they planted on 25' x 15' spacing. Lychee planted 18' x 18' will have full canopy cover in 15-20 years here. 40' x 40' would take about 40 years from what I have seen. Its about 1' a year once they get going (some varieties like Emperor are slower growers).

I agree with what K-Rimes said about needing space to move around. I think its better to squeeze trees in the row rather than squeezing the rows. For example 20' x 15' gives you more space to move down the rows and more trees per acre than 18' x 18'.

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